


I Dare You

by thesaltybitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, Canon Universe, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Romance, Soft & Sweet, dear god just let them be happy, self indulgent nonsense, soft!Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-23 17:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21085124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaltybitch/pseuds/thesaltybitch
Summary: Loki has, and will always be, a romantic at heart.





	I Dare You

**Author's Note:**

> This tiny fic comes to you today, typed up as fast as my frozen little fingers could move (bc I refuse to turn on the heat in my apt). Any errors are mine. I've been away for almost a month now and I needed both a warm up AND a way to avoid doing any real work. 
> 
> Inspired in part by [I Dare You by The XX](https://open.spotify.com/track/044qU7kwVZaDwzWnRsmVVL?si=f7yyT_VxTn-r6GhTQavtIQ).
> 
> Enjoy!

*

They called him sly.

They called him cunning. 

Ambitious. 

Cutthroat. 

They called him any adjective that fit the picture of him they wanted to see. Two-faced. Beast. Snake. 

Loki had never been more pleased to be the center of such a picture. For all he cared, they could paint it across the halls in the throne room, splash those vile whispers loud and wide across the gaping halls for all to see. Let them feel the smug satisfaction of being right. 

“We were right all along,” they would say to their partners and friends. “You can never trust a frost giant.”

And in part, they were right. 

Because nobody in the nine realms had painted themselves quite so horridly by design. Loki was a liar and a cheater to the deepest parts of his being, his silver tongue weaving stories great enough to match the ones his mother wove on her great loom. He spun tales of evil and tales of jealousy in the dark and then watched by light of day as the realm swallowed his words like a greedy newborn, desperate for scandal. Desperate to know they were right. 

He wasn’t stupid. He knew they didn’t want him. They never had. 

Frigga would be the first to contradict them, a stalwart guardian of the truth and his fiercest defender. How she would beg him to do little things to change their minds. “Show them who you really are, darling,” she would implore him. And each time he would refuse. 

Because he wanted it this way. 

Because this way was safe. 

“It’s not fair!” Thor would bellow at least once a week, throwing one of his legendary temper tantrums and setting flame to the drapes. 

It amused Loki to watch them burn and he made no move to put them out. 

“Why would they say such vile things,” Thor would demand of him, breathing as if the slights were his own. “There is no one in this kingdom as kind and gentle as you. I will burn them for saying such things.”

And then Loki would talk him down with soft words, the kind of words that came from the heart, the sincerest words he knew how to speak and the ones he guarded so diligently. 

He could not be seen as soft. 

But he was. To his core Loki was everything his public image was not.

If they knew him for real, they would see him for exactly what he was: a romantic. 

Loki loved many things and he loved them deeply and fiercely. He loved the seasons on Asgard and their many colors, he loved that hulking Bilgesnipe that Thor had tamed just to prove he could, and he loved to lie against the steps of the bifrost and watch the realms wink into view as darkness fell. 

He liked the way his mother’s footsteps sounded against the hard marble of the palace. He liked the way his brother’s skin seemed perpetually soaked in sunshine. He liked the way his father’s eyes would shine when he was proud of him, even if Odin said little else. 

Loki the gentle. Loki the kind. Loki who still caught spiders and released them into the gardens because he didn’t want to kill them. 

If they knew they would be merciless. 

And if he had learned anything from his father it was that softness was weakness. 

“You know that’s just how father is,” Thor said to him, a warm, heavy leg draped over Loki’s own legs beneath the sheets one night. “He’s from another time. War breeds a different kind of man.”

“Is war not how you earned your place?” Loki asked, thinking his brother was being quite hypocritical. The people of Asgard loved Thor relentlessly. He did not have to try to gain their favor, he had always had it. 

Thor kissed him and smoothed his hair back. “You aren’t giving our people enough credit,” he said gently. “If they knew the real you, they would come to love you as I do. You are kind and gentle and everything this new era needs.”

Loki took his words to heart. He was loathe to begin lowering the walls he had worked so hard to build, but as he began to allow himself to breathe and stretch into one or two small things, the rest began to come naturally. 

The people could not hurt him if he had given them their lies himself. He could orchestrate his own fate without batting an eyelash, down to the method in which he preferred to die. To relinquish control was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. 

But it felt so good to be free. 

His heart sang and he knew it had never sung anything but love songs. Being alive came with a thousand beautiful things and he couldn’t help but love them all. 

It was a new kind of high, to paint himself a picture as he really was, to cast aside the illusion and find that he was not rejected. He grew, and the people of Asgard grew with him.

“What did I tell you, brother?” Thor asked him. “I daresay they are more excited to see you today than they are to see me.”

He looked regal standing there in his coronation attire. No armor, by Thor’s request. The time for warriors was in the past for now. He would make his first statement as king by casting aside the traditional coronation war armor. Instead, he had turned to Loki for advice and the results were stunning, to say the least.

It pleased Loki to see him like this, swathed in yards of soft gold and red and positively glowing. He reached out and brushed a stray hair from his brother’s cheek, tucking it back into the braids that twisted loosely along his crown. 

“Don’t speak nonsense,” Loki chided him without heat, his own silk garb rustling against the floor as he rose to his toes to kiss his brother gently. “They are excited for everything your kingdom promises them.”

“You’re an idiot,” Thor murmured fondly, cupping his face and kissing him back. “You are the reason they even believe such a thing can exist.”

Loki smiled against him and then pulled away and took his brother’s hand, lacing their fingers together. 

“Are you ready to be king?” he asked. 

Thor smiled down at him. 

“I am now.”

_fin~_

_i've been a romantic for so long_  
_all i've ever had are love songs_  
_singing oh, go on, i dare you_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed my soft Loki as much as I love him. I think, under the right circumstances, he would have been the sweetest thing. Don't even come for me. 
> 
> I am available for further comment, complaint, and general existential dread on the [bird site](https://twitter.com/overlysalted_).


End file.
